8.35pm: The pressure now over the next 70 days will be "to get it right", London Mayor Boris Johnson has told the BBC. The Press Association has been listening:

"Every step of the torch relay now makes the pressure on us even greater to deliver a really good Games," he said.

"Britain was going through tough times and "we want to get the benefits of those Olympic investments for a long time to come", he added.

He also praised Beckham for being an "amazing campaigner" and an "incredible ambassador".

Lord Coe said: "It's just suddenly come home this is the first time this has happened in this country for 64 years...

"I have no doubt nobody's going to sit this dance out."In 70 days' time there would be "great big British moments in British venues", which would encourage young people to take up sport, he said."The challenge is to make sure in 10 years' time they're still in sport," he added.

8.11pm: I've put together this quick Storify using a selection of tweets:

Looking ahead to the next 10 weeks, in which the flame will make its way around Britain, Coe was sanguine about the threat of the sort of disruption created by pro-Tibet demonstrators when the Beijing torch visited London in 2008.

"We live in a country where peaceful protest is very much a part of what we are," he said before leaving Athens. "Thank goodness it is, in a way, as long as that doesn't slop over into becoming a public order issue or endangering people who are enjoying their day."

It had been instructive, he said, to watch the test event for the torch relay, which took place in Leicestershire last month.

"It started at seven o'clock in the morning in Leicester and ended at five or six o'clock in the evening in Peterborough and went through little villages and small towns. In Melton Mowbray they were four or five deep on the pavement, and that was just a test event with a cardboard torch and no actual flame.

"I don't sense that there's a widespread feeling that this is to be anything other than cherished. My gut instinct is that people will be quite protective."

7.40pm: A cheer from the crowd now (and not without some feeling of relief perhaps) as David Beckham successfully lights the flame.

There's an awful lot of hair product in close proximity to it now. Fingers crossed.

7.38pm: "This is moment for people to come out and line the streets and show the world what a dynamic and kind-hearted country we are," says the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, chatting with the BBC's Sophie Raworth on a podium.

7.36pm: And then comes Princess Anne, carrying the flame in one hand, with her handbag slung over a shoulder above it.

Behind her comes Sebastian Coe and David Beckham (who seems to have drawn a larger cheer from the crowd than the flame itself)

7.33pm: First out of the plane are five young people chosen to represent the flame on its trip to Britain. They've been chosen because of their contribution to sport. They range from rugby to hockey players.

6.59pm: Owen Gibson has filed some colour from the windswept airfield at Culdrose, where he says that a mix of distinguished local figures, military top brass, officious organisers are dressed up as though they are in the military.

They might be better off going home and watching on TV, to be honest - particularly as it's getting cold and threatening to rain.

Helicopters are buzzing loudly overhead and people are shouting into walkie talkies and mobile phones about camera positions, the "mother flame" and arrival times.

Those gathered here await Princess Anne, David Beckham, Seb Coe, Boris Johnson and the (obligatory) five children from around the country who will descend from the steps at around 7.25pm.

We're told the plane is on time. There are also 400 members of the public here who applied in a ballot and 100 more schoolchildren. A further 100 or so members of the public have their faces pressed up against the fence of the airfield some 500 yards away.

Paul Deighton, chief executive of the London 2012 organising committee, has just told us that the "magic" of the torch relay will help convert 2012 sceptics.

"The spirit behind the torch, the stories behind the torchbearers will help to make it a Games in which everyone feels involved and to which they feel an emotional connection," he says.

6.55pm: We're being told that the arrival of the flame is just under half an hour away.

6.45pm: But back now to someone who is considerably more enthusiastic about it all - Ben Ainslie, who has been chosen to start the Olympic flame relay across Britain.

A quick meal, bed and tomorrow Ainslie will be the first of the 8,000 torchbearers who over the next 70 days will be trotting around the country with the flame.

Credit: Chris Ison/PA

"I've only got to do 200 metres or something," said the 35-year-old (left). He looked as if he would manage that. "It's a huge honour to carry the torch.

"It's great to be part of this Olympic fever which I think everyone will experience from now on as the flame makes its way across the country. It's a great way for everyone to start to feel part of this Olympics and when the games kicks off for real the whole nation will be behind it."

It is fitting that Ainslie has been chosen. Not only is he one of the great modern Olympic athletes (he is hotly tipped to win a fourth gold), but he has strong Cornish connections.

6.33pm: Of course, not everyone is quite so excited about the next 70 days of events centred around the movement of 8,000 aluminium alloy objects (one for each torch bearer).

As the Olympic flame sets out from Land's Endon Saturday morning, winding through Cornwall's struggling market towns and one or two of its busier beach resorts, on towards an expectant nation of cheering crowds, it heralds not only a summer of flag-waving and Jubilee-fuelled Olympic fever, but summer itself.

Cornish gardeners like to boast that spring comes early to them, sweeping up into the rest of the country via their frost-free plots. Look at our early daffodils, look at our cordylines and chusan palms, our azaleas and echiums. It is only fitting the flame should arrive the same way.

5.58pm: Owen Gibson, the Guardian's Olympics editor, is down at RNAS Culdrose, where around 100 children from local schools have been invited to watch from a small grandstand erected at the airfield.

Some 1,000 local members of the public applied for a further 400 tickets.

Owen says that in nearby Penzance, the closest large town to the air base, enthusiasm for its arrival has been discernible but low key.

The bunting was up in the town centre, local businesses were experiencing a boon from the descending media hordes and pubs and hotels along the Promenade were advertising bacon butties and vantage points to watch the relay.

Yet hotel receptionists said they were no busier than usual and a gaggle of Canadian tourists said they were planning to avoid the relay altogether, leaving their hotel before 6am to avoid the attendant road closures. Radio phone ins focused as much on the road closures as Olympic fever.

However, Paul Deighton, chief executive of the London 2012 organising committee said he was confident crowds would turn out in their droves in towns and villages. "We expect people to come and out celebrate in their own communities."

And Jerry Ovens, the commander of the Royal Naval Air Station at Culdrose who had overseen preparations for the flame's arrival, said local enthusiasm was high. "Everyone is really excited about it," he said.

5.43pm: That's the plan anyway. But let's have a look for a moment at how things went on the last occasion that London hosted the games, in 1948.

On that occasion, the people of Dover welcomed the flame ashore just 24 hours ahead of the opening ceremony at the Empire Stadium in Wembley.

Dubbed the 'make-do-and-mend' Olympics, war time style rationing was still in place and many governments were in the shackles of austerity. Plus ça change, eh?

About this article

Olympic torch arrival - as it happened

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 15.59 EDT on Friday 18 May 2012.
It was last modified at 15.42 EDT on Tuesday 19 August 2014.
It was first published at 12.39 EDT on Friday 18 May 2012.